Editing Understanding

{{short description|Ability to think about and use concepts to deal adequately with a subject}}
{{about|the psychological process}}
{{redirect|Understand}}

'''Understanding''' is a [[Cognition|cognitive]] process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a [[person]], situation, or [[message]] whereby one is able to use [[concept]]s to model that object.
Understanding is a [[Relation (philosophy)|relation]] between the knower and an object of understanding. Understanding implies abilities and dispositions with respect to an object of [[knowledge]] that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior.<ref>{{cite web|last=Bereiter|first=Carl|title=Education and mind in the Knowledge Age|url=http://www.cocon.com/observetory/carlbereiter/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060225000806/http://www.cocon.com/observetory/carlbereiter/|archive-date=2006-02-25}}</ref>

Understanding is often, though not always, related to [[learning]] concepts, and sometimes also the [[theory]] or theories associated with those concepts. However, a person may have a good ability to predict the behavior of an object, animal or system—and therefore may, in some sense, understand it—without necessarily being familiar with the concepts or theories associated with that object, animal, or system in their culture. They may have developed their own distinct concepts and theories, which may be equivalent, better or worse than the recognized standard concepts and theories of their culture. Thus, understanding is correlated with the ability to make [[inference]]s.

== Definition ==
Understanding and knowledge are both words without unified definitions. <ref>{{Citation|last=Zagzebski|first=Linda|title=What is Knowledge?|date=2017|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405164863.ch3|work=The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology|pages=92–116|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781405164863.ch3|isbn=978-1-4051-6486-3|s2cid=158886670 |access-date=2021-11-28|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Târziu|first=Gabriel|date=2021-04-01|title=How Do We Obtain Understanding with the Help of Explanations?| journal=Axiomathes| language=en|volume=31|issue=2|pages=173–197| doi=10.1007/s10516-020-09488-6|s2cid=218947045 |issn=1572-8390}}</ref>

[[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] looked past a [[definition of knowledge]] or understanding and looked at how the words were used in natural language, identifying relevant features in context.<ref name=":1">Ludwig Wittgenstein, ''[[On Certainty]]'', remark 42</ref> It has been suggested that knowledge alone has little value whereas knowing something in context is understanding,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pritchard|first=Duncan|title=Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value|date=2008-08-12|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/gps/77/1/article-p325_13.xml|journal=Grazer Philosophische Studien|language=en|volume=77|issue=1| pages=325–339| doi=10.1163/18756735-90000852|hdl=20.500.11820/522fbeba-15b2-46d0-8019-4647e795642c| issn=1875-6735|hdl-access=free}}</ref> which has much higher relative value but it has also been suggested that a state short of knowledge can be termed understanding.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kvanvig|first=Jonathan L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ILTIEjvbeLoC|title=The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding|date=2003-08-21|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-44228-2|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Elgin|first=Catherine Z.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWc6DwAAQBAJ|title=True Enough|date=2017-09-29|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-03653-5|language=en}}</ref> 

Someone's understanding can come from perceived causes <ref>{{Cite book|last=Lipton|first=Peter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O52CAgAAQBAJ|title=Inference to the Best Explanation|date=2003-10-04|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-54827-9|language=en}}</ref> or non causal sources,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kitcher|first=Philip|date=1985-11-01|title=Two Approaches to Explanation|url=https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=jphil&id=jphil_1985_0082_0011_0632_0639|journal=The Journal of Philosophy|language=en|volume=82|issue=11|pages=632–639|doi=10.2307/2026419|jstor=2026419|url-access=subscription}}</ref> suggesting knowledge being a pillar of where understanding comes from.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Grimm|first=Stephen R.|title=Understanding as Knowledge of Causes|date=2014|work=Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science|pages=329–345|editor-last=Fairweather|editor-first=Abrol|series=Synthese Library|volume=366|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-04672-3_19|isbn=978-3-319-04672-3}}</ref> We can have understanding while lacking corresponding knowledge and have knowledge while lacking the corresponding understanding.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pritchard|first=Duncan|date=2009|title=Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/royal-institute-of-philosophy-supplements/article/abs/knowledge-understanding-and-epistemic-value/4FC236E1E680B15A00AE854F1693F920|journal=Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements|language=en|volume=64|pages=19–43|doi=10.1017/S1358246109000046|hdl=20.500.11820/0ef91ebb-b9f0-44e9-88d6-08afe5e96cc0|s2cid=170647127|issn=1755-3555|hdl-access=free}}</ref> Even with knowledge, relevant distinctions or correct conclusion about similar cases may not be made,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hills|first=Alison|date=2009-10-01|title=Moral Testimony and Moral Epistemology|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/648610|journal=Ethics|volume=120|issue=1|pages=94–127|doi=10.1086/648610|s2cid=144361023|issn=0014-1704|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Hills|first=Alison|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3EEVDAAAQBAJ&dq=The+Beloved+Self%3A+Morality+and+the+Challenge+from+Egoism&pg=PR7|title=The Beloved Self: Morality and the Challenge from Egoism|date=2010-04-29|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-921330-6|language=en}}</ref> suggesting more information about the context would be required, which eludes to different degrees of understanding depending on the context.<ref name=":0" /> To understand something implies abilities and [[Disposition|dispositions]] with respect to an object of knowledge that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bereiter|first=Carl|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NJnozmZXvYAC&dq=education+and+mind+knowledge+age&pg=PP1|title=Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age|date=2005-04-11|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-64479-6|language=en}}</ref> 

Understanding could therefore be less demanding than knowledge, because it seems that someone can have understanding of a subject even though they might have been mistaken about that subject. But it is more demanding in that it requires that the internal connections among ones' beliefs actually be "seen" or "grasped" by the person doing the understanding when found at a deeper level.<ref name=":0" />

Explanatory realism and the propositional model suggests understanding comes from causal propositions <ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kim|first=Jaegwon|date=1994|title=Explanatory Knowledge and Metaphysical Dependence|journal=Philosophical Issues|volume=5|pages=51–69|doi=10.2307/1522873|jstor=1522873|issn=1533-6077}}</ref> but, it has been argued that knowing ''how'' the cause might bring an effect is understanding.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|last=Grimm|first=Stephen R.|title=Understanding as Knowledge of Causes|date=2014|work=Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science|pages=329–345|editor-last=Fairweather|editor-first=Abrol|series=Synthese Library|volume=366|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-04672-3_19|isbn=978-3-319-04672-3}}</ref> As understanding is not directed towards a discrete proposition, but involves grasping relations of parts to other parts and perhaps the relations of part to wholes.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Zagzebski|first=Linda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Md_OLcnALG0C|title=On Epistemology|date=2008-07-08|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-534-25234-2|language=en}}</ref> The relationships grasped help understanding, but the relationships are not always causal.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Ruben|first1=David-Hillel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zOd1P1PiS8MC&dq=Action+and+its+explanation&pg=PA1|title=Action and Its Explanation|last2=Ruben|first2=Director of New York University in London and Professor of Philosophy at the School of Oriental and African Studies David-Hillel|date=2003|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-823588-0|language=en}}</ref> So understanding could therefore be expressed by knowledge of dependencies.<ref name=":02" />

==As a model==
[[Gregory Chaitin]] propounds a view that comprehension is a kind of [[data compression]].<ref>{{Citation |first=Gregory |last=Chaitin |author-link=Gregory Chaitin |url=https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf |title=The Limits Of Reason |journal=Scientific American |year=2006 |volume=294 |issue=3 |pages=74–81 |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0306-74 |pmid=16502614 |bibcode=2006SciAm.294c..74C |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304192140/https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-04 }}</ref> In his 2006 essay "The Limits of Reason", he argues that ''understanding'' something means being able to figure out a simple set of rules that explains it. For example, we understand why day and night exist because we have a simple [[conceptual model|model]]—the rotation of the earth—that explains a tremendous amount of data—changes in brightness, temperature, and atmospheric composition of the earth. We have compressed a large amount of information by using a simple model that [[prediction|predicts]] it. Similarly, we understand the number [[repeating decimal|0.33333...]] by thinking of it as one-third. The first way of representing the number requires five concepts ("0", "decimal point", "3", "infinity", "infinity of 3"); but the second way can produce all the data of the first representation, but uses only three concepts ("1", "division", "3"). Chaitin argues that comprehension is this ability to compress data. This perspective on comprehension forms the foundation of some models of intelligent agents, as in [[Nello Cristianini]]'s book "The Shortcut", where it is used to explain that machines can understand the world in fundamentally non-human ways.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cristianini |first=Nello |title=The shortcut: why intelligent machines do not think like us |date=2023 |isbn=978-1-003-33581-8 |location=Boca Raton |oclc=1352480147}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
{{wiktionary|understanding}}
*{{PhilPapers|category|understanding}}
*{{IEP|understa|Understanding in Epistemology}}

{{Human intelligence topics}}
{{philosophy of mind}}
{{Mental processes}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Cognition]]
[[Category:Concepts in epistemology]]
[[Category:Knowledge]]
[[Category:Thought]]